
First Principles
What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country
Categories
Nonfiction, Philosophy, Biography, History, Politics, Audiobook, Political Science, American, American History, American Revolution
Content Type
Book
Binding
ebook
Year
2020
Publisher
Harper
Language
English
ASIN
0062997475
ISBN
0062997475
ISBN13
9780062997470
File Download
PDF | EPUB
First Principles Plot Summary
Introduction
In the summer of 1787, a group of men gathered in Philadelphia faced an unprecedented challenge: how to create a government that preserved liberty while providing sufficient strength to endure. These founders, steeped in classical learning, looked to ancient Greece and Rome not as distant historical curiosities, but as practical guides for their revolutionary experiment. The classical world provided them with both inspiration and warning as they crafted a new kind of republic. This historical journey explores how America's founders drew upon and ultimately transcended their classical education. We'll discover how Washington consciously modeled himself after the Roman general Cincinnatus, how Jefferson's Declaration echoed Epicurean philosophy, and how Madison's constitutional innovations represented a profound break from classical republican theory. Most importantly, we'll examine how the founders confronted the central contradiction of their vision: proclaiming liberty while maintaining slavery. By understanding these classical foundations and their limitations, we gain insight into the ongoing American struggle to fulfill the promise of liberty for all citizens.
Chapter 1: Classical Ideals in Colonial Minds (1750-1775)
The mid-18th century American colonies were steeped in classical learning to a degree almost unimaginable today. For educated colonists, ancient Greece and Rome weren't distant historical curiosities but living examples that shaped their worldview and values. Young men at colonial colleges spent countless hours studying Latin and Greek texts, absorbing not just language but the political philosophy and historical lessons of antiquity. This classical influence permeated colonial culture. When John and Abigail Adams exchanged love letters, they used classical pseudonyms – he was "Lysander" and she was "Diana." Thomas Jefferson designed Monticello with classical architectural elements and displayed busts of ancient philosophers throughout his home. Even our modern American landscape reflects this classical heritage – the "Senate" meets in "The Capitol," terms drawn directly from ancient Rome. Central to this classical worldview was the concept of "virtue" – not merely personal morality, but civic virtue: the willingness to sacrifice private interests for the public good. As historian Gordon Wood notes, virtue was considered the "lynchpin" of republican government. The founders believed that republics survived only when citizens possessed sufficient virtue to resist corruption and tyranny. This classical republican ideal shaped how colonial leaders understood their growing conflict with Britain, which they increasingly viewed as a struggle between virtue and corruption. Interestingly, the founders' classical preferences differed from modern ones. While today we often celebrate democratic Athens, the revolutionary generation more frequently admired Rome and even Sparta. They saw Sparta as embodying the virtues of simplicity, stability, and military prowess, while viewing Athens as too democratic and unstable. This preference reflected their concern about the fragility of republics and their fear that excessive democracy could lead to mob rule and eventually tyranny – a cycle described by ancient writers like Polybius. However, this classical framework contained a profound contradiction. While celebrating republican liberty, the founders maintained a system of racial slavery far more rigid than anything in the ancient world. Unlike Roman slavery, which was not based on race and allowed paths to freedom, American slavery created a permanent underclass defined by skin color. This contradiction between classical ideals and American practice would eventually threaten the very republic they were building.
Chapter 2: Revolutionary Virtue and Republican Rebellion (1775-1783)
The period from 1775 to 1783 witnessed the transformation of colonial resistance into full-scale revolution and eventual independence. As tensions escalated following the Boston Tea Party and the Coercive Acts, colonial leaders increasingly framed their resistance in classical republican terms. Patrick Henry's famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech explicitly invoked Roman heroes who had sacrificed themselves for republican liberty. Thomas Jefferson's "Summary View of the Rights of British America" (1774) boldly criticized the king directly, arguing that liberty was a God-given right that no monarch could rightfully restrict. George Washington emerged as the embodiment of classical republican virtue during this period. When appointed commander of the Continental Army in 1775, Washington consciously modeled himself after Cincinnatus, the Roman farmer who temporarily left his plow to lead Rome in crisis before voluntarily relinquishing power. Washington understood that in a republic, military leadership must be subordinate to civilian authority and guided by virtue rather than ambition. As he wrote to a friend in 1775, faced with the choice between bloody conflict or submission to tyranny: "But can a virtuous Man hesitate in his choice?" The Revolutionary War severely tested this classical republican framework. Washington quickly realized that appeals to virtue alone were insufficient to maintain an effective fighting force. Soldiers deserted, supplies ran short, and the Continental Congress proved unable to provide adequate funding. Washington adapted by adopting what contemporaries recognized as a "Fabian strategy" – named after the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus who had defeated Hannibal by avoiding direct battles and gradually wearing down the invader. This approach was politically risky, as critics like John Adams complained about "Fabian Systems," but Washington understood that preserving his army was more important than winning individual battles. By 1778, Washington was reporting to Congress that "a small knowledge of human nature will convince us that with far the greatest part of mankind, interest is the governing principle... Motives of public virtue may for a time, or in particular instances, actuate men to the observance of a conduct purely disinterested; but they are not of themselves sufficient." This insight – that virtue alone was insufficient to sustain the republic – represented a crucial evolution in revolutionary thinking that would later influence the Constitutional Convention. The successful conclusion of the war in 1783 seemed to vindicate the revolutionary cause, but it also raised new questions about America's future. When Washington voluntarily resigned his commission and returned to Mount Vernon, he fulfilled the Cincinnatus ideal and established a crucial precedent for civilian control of the military. Yet the new nation faced enormous challenges under the Articles of Confederation, which created a weak central government reliant on state cooperation. The classical model that had inspired the Revolution would prove inadequate for the challenges of governance in a large, diverse republic.
Chapter 3: Constitutional Innovation: Madison's Pragmatic Vision (1787-1789)
By 1787, the American experiment was faltering. Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government lacked power to raise revenue, regulate commerce, or enforce its decisions. Economic troubles plagued the new nation, culminating in Shays' Rebellion in 1786-87, when indebted Massachusetts farmers rose up against state authorities. George Washington, watching events from Mount Vernon, wrote anxiously to James Madison: "We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion!" James Madison emerged as the intellectual architect of constitutional reform. Unlike some of his contemporaries who continued to believe that republican government depended primarily on civic virtue, Madison developed a more realistic assessment of human nature. Through intensive study of ancient confederacies and republics, he concluded that all previous republics had failed because they relied too heavily on virtue and lacked institutional safeguards against faction and corruption. Madison's breakthrough insight, articulated most clearly in Federalist No. 10, was that a large republic might actually be more stable than a small one. This directly contradicted classical republican theory, which held that republics must be small to maintain the homogeneity and civic virtue necessary for self-government. Madison argued instead that in a large republic, the diversity of interests would prevent any single faction from dominating: "Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens." At the Constitutional Convention, Madison and his allies pushed for a stronger national government with separate branches that would check each other's power. Rather than relying primarily on civic virtue, they designed a system of institutional checks and balances to constrain self-interest and ambition. As Madison explained in Federalist No. 51, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary... Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." This represented a profound shift from classical republicanism toward a more modern understanding of political psychology. The resulting Constitution created a hybrid system—neither fully national nor federal, with power divided between states and the central government. It mentioned neither virtue nor classical ideals, instead creating a mechanical system of checks and balances that could function even without virtuous citizens. As Gordon Wood notes, the founders created "a new basis of republican government, a way of achieving viable self-government that did not require virtue as its base." This was Madison's greatest innovation—a republic designed not for angels but for flawed human beings. The ratification debates revealed deep divisions about this new vision. Anti-Federalists, drawing on classical republican concerns about centralized power, warned that the proposed Constitution would undermine liberty and local self-government. Federalists countered that the Constitution's institutional safeguards would better protect liberty than reliance on virtue alone. The compromise that emerged, including the promise of a Bill of Rights, preserved classical concerns about liberty while acknowledging the need for more robust governmental structures.
Chapter 4: Partisan Divisions: The Jefferson-Hamilton Rivalry (1790-1800)
The 1790s witnessed the painful emergence of partisan politics in America, as former revolutionary allies divided over fundamental questions about the new republic's direction. This division was personified by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, whose competing visions reflected different interpretations of classical republicanism and its application to American circumstances. As Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton advocated policies that would strengthen the federal government and promote commercial development. His financial program, which included the assumption of state debts and the creation of a national bank, aimed to bind wealthy citizens to the new government and establish America as a modern commercial power. Jefferson and his ally Madison viewed these policies with alarm, fearing they would corrupt the republic by creating dangerous concentrations of wealth and power. Drawing on classical republican concerns about corruption, they warned that Hamilton's system would undermine the agrarian basis of American liberty. The French Revolution intensified these divisions. Jefferson and his supporters saw the French upheaval as a continuation of America's own revolutionary struggle, while Federalists viewed it with growing horror as it descended into violence. These reactions reflected different understandings of classical republicanism. Jefferson's more democratic vision emphasized popular sovereignty and was willing to accept occasional disorder as the price of liberty. Hamilton, drawing on classical concerns about mob rule, emphasized the need for order and stability to prevent democratic excesses. By 1796, partisan divisions had hardened into the nation's first political parties – Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. This development contradicted classical republican theory, which viewed parties or "factions" as corrupt conspiracies against the public good. When John Adams became president, the partisan atmosphere intensified. The quasi-war with France and the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts revealed how far the young republic had moved from the classical ideal of consensual politics guided by disinterested virtue. The Sedition Act, which criminalized criticism of the government, particularly revealed how classical republican concerns about sedition could be weaponized against political opponents. Jefferson's election in 1800, which he later called the "Revolution of 1800," marked a decisive shift in American republicanism. For the first time in modern history, political power transferred peacefully from one party to another through democratic elections. Jefferson's inaugural address, with its famous declaration that "we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists," attempted to heal partisan divisions by appealing to shared republican principles. However, Jefferson's presidency also demonstrated the practical challenges of implementing classical republican ideals in a modern commercial society. Despite his rhetorical commitment to limited government, Jefferson found himself exercising executive power in ways that sometimes contradicted his stated principles, most notably in the Louisiana Purchase. The partisan conflicts of the 1790s ultimately forced Americans to reconsider their understanding of republican government. Madison, once the architect of constitutional checks and balances, now argued that "in every political society, parties are unavoidable" and could serve as additional checks on power. The classical ideal of consensus was giving way to a modern understanding of democratic politics based on competing interests and organized opposition.
Chapter 5: Slavery's Challenge to Republican Principles (1800-1820)
The most profound contradiction in the American experiment was the coexistence of republican liberty with human slavery. This tension, present from the founding, became increasingly difficult to ignore in the early 19th century as the nation expanded westward and debates over slavery's future intensified. Thomas Jefferson embodied this contradiction. Though he wrote that "all men are created equal" and privately acknowledged that slavery was morally wrong, he owned hundreds of enslaved people throughout his life and freed only a handful in his will. In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson simultaneously expressed moral qualms about slavery and racist views about Black inferiority. When confronted with the Haitian Revolution, where enslaved people successfully overthrew their masters, Jefferson reacted with horror rather than celebrating their quest for liberty. His fear of slave rebellion outweighed his professed commitment to natural rights. The Constitution itself embodied this contradiction. Without explicitly mentioning slavery, it protected the institution through provisions like the Three-Fifths Clause, the Fugitive Slave Clause, and the prohibition on ending the slave trade before 1808. James Madison, who helped craft these compromises, acknowledged their moral cost but defended them as necessary for national unity. During the Constitutional Convention, he warned that the real division in America was not between large and small states but between North and South over slavery. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 dramatically expanded American territory, raising new questions about slavery's expansion. As new states sought admission to the Union, sectional tensions increased. The Missouri Crisis of 1819-1820 brought these tensions to the forefront. When Missouri sought admission as a slave state, Northern representatives objected to slavery's expansion. The resulting Missouri Compromise temporarily resolved the crisis by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while prohibiting slavery in the remaining Louisiana Purchase territory north of 36°30'. Jefferson called this compromise "a fire bell in the night" that filled him with terror, recognizing that it revealed the fundamental contradiction in American republicanism. Southern defenders of slavery increasingly turned to classical precedents to justify the institution. They pointed out that the democracies of Athens and the republic of Rome had been slave societies. Thomas Dew, president of William and Mary College, argued that "in the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, where the spirit of liberty glowed with the most intensity, the slaves were more numerous than the freemen." This perversion of classical learning showed how the founders' intellectual framework could be used to defend the very tyranny they had fought against. Among the founders, only Washington made a significant break with slavery, freeing his enslaved workers in his will and providing for their education and support. Yet even this gesture came only after his death and affected only those he personally owned, not those who belonged to his wife's estate. The classical model that had inspired the Revolution proved inadequate for addressing America's original sin, leaving a legacy that would eventually lead to civil war.
Chapter 6: From Classical Republic to Modern Democracy (1820-1850)
The early decades of the nineteenth century witnessed a gradual but profound transformation in American political culture. As the founding generation passed from the scene, newer political leaders and ordinary citizens increasingly embraced a more democratic, individualistic ethos that departed from classical republican ideals. This shift reflected changing social and economic conditions as well as the distinctive American experience of self-government. Andrew Jackson's rise to the presidency in 1828 symbolized the new democratic ethos. Unlike the classically educated founders, Jackson was a self-made man who appealed directly to ordinary citizens. His supporters celebrated him not for his virtue or learning but for his common touch and forceful leadership. The Jacksonian Democrats championed expanded suffrage for white men and attacked what they saw as aristocratic privilege, including the Second Bank of the United States. When Jackson vetoed the bank's recharter in 1832, he justified his action not in terms of classical republican virtue but as a defense of ordinary citizens against special interests. Economic changes accelerated this cultural transformation. The market revolution of the early nineteenth century integrated local communities into regional and national markets, encouraging Americans to pursue individual economic advancement rather than classical republican self-sufficiency. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 dramatically reduced transportation costs, facilitating commerce between the Midwest and the East Coast. As commerce and eventually industry expanded, Americans increasingly defined success in terms of material prosperity rather than civic virtue. The classical ideal of the independent citizen-farmer gave way to a more modern vision of the enterprising businessman or wage earner. Religious developments further undermined classical republicanism. The Second Great Awakening, which swept across America in the early nineteenth century, emphasized individual conversion and moral reform rather than classical civic virtue. Evangelical Protestantism, with its focus on personal salvation and moral improvement, provided an alternative framework for understanding citizenship and public life. Religious reformers campaigned against various social ills, from alcohol consumption to slavery, based on Christian rather than classical principles. By the 1830s, foreign observers like Alexis de Tocqueville noted how thoroughly American culture had departed from classical models. In Democracy in America, Tocqueville observed that Americans showed little interest in classical learning or ancient history, preferring practical knowledge and contemporary concerns. "Democratic peoples," he wrote, "hold erudition in very low esteem and care little about what happened in Rome and Athens. What they want to hear about is themselves." This pragmatic, forward-looking orientation reflected America's distinctive national experience and its increasingly democratic culture. The Industrial Revolution delivered the final blow to American classicism. When Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, laid the first stone of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1828, it symbolized the transition from the classical past to the industrial future. Americans increasingly measured progress not by adherence to ancient virtues but by material advancement and technological innovation. As one speaker declared in 1850, "A steamer is a mightier epic than the Iliad." Yet even as classical republicanism declined as a dominant political framework, its influence persisted in American culture and institutions. The classical architectural style remained popular for public buildings, Lincoln would later invoke classical themes in the Gettysburg Address, and Americans continued to understand their experiment in self-government as part of a historical tradition stretching back to ancient Greece and Rome. The classical foundation had been transformed rather than abandoned, adapted to the needs of a modern democratic society.
Summary
The struggle to establish and maintain a republic based on classical ideals has been the defining tension throughout early American history. From the revolutionary generation's embrace of Roman models of virtue and self-governance to the Civil War's test of constitutional principles, Americans have continually reinterpreted and adapted classical republicanism to their unique circumstances. This adaptation has never been straightforward. The founders created a system that brilliantly balanced competing interests through institutional checks and balances, yet they failed to resolve the fundamental contradiction between republican liberty and chattel slavery. They championed civic virtue while acknowledging human self-interest, created a strong national government while preserving state sovereignty, and established democratic institutions while fearing democratic excesses. The American experiment offers enduring lessons about the challenges of republican government. First, institutions matter more than intentions—the constitutional system designed by Madison and his colleagues has proven remarkably durable precisely because it does not depend on universal virtue. Second, founding principles can provide moral guidance even when imperfectly implemented—Lincoln's appeal to the Declaration of Independence during the Civil War demonstrates how founding ideals can inspire later generations to expand liberty and equality. Finally, republics require continuous renewal and reinterpretation—each generation must rediscover and reapply republican principles to new circumstances. The classical ideals that inspired the founding generation remain relevant today, not as fixed doctrines but as living traditions that can help us navigate contemporary challenges to democratic governance and equal citizenship.
Best Quote
“We should drop the bizarre American fiction that corporations are people, enjoying all the rights of citizens, including unfettered campaign donations as a form of free speech. Indeed, corporations possess greater rights than do people, as they cannot be jailed or executed, while citizens can and do suffer those fates. As the legal historian Zephyr Teachout has observed, the founders would have considered corporate campaign spending the essence of political corruption.” ― Thomas E. Ricks, First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country
Review Summary
Strengths: Ricks' exploration of the philosophical underpinnings of America's Founding Fathers offers profound insights into their intellectual influences. The engaging narrative style captivates readers, while the thorough research provides a fresh perspective on American democracy's origins. Additionally, the book effectively connects historical insights with modern political discourse, enhancing its relevance for contemporary readers. Weaknesses: Occasionally, the book delves too deeply into historical minutiae, which can overwhelm those not well-versed in classical references. This depth might deter readers less familiar with the subject matter. Overall Sentiment: Reception is largely positive, with many appreciating the book's educational and thought-provoking nature. Readers commend its insightful analysis of classical influences on the Founders' political ideologies. Key Takeaway: "First Principles" illuminates the enduring legacy of the Founding Fathers' philosophical influences, highlighting the ongoing relevance of their ideas in today's political landscape.
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First Principles
By Thomas E. Ricks